The Real ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ Sues Film’s Producer, Claiming They Scammed Him

Although The Wolf of Wall Street, the story of crooked stockbroker Jordan Belfort, was released in 2013, somehow the story of the film keeps unfolding in surprising and even poetic ways. After the movie was released, its producers were accused of funding the film with money they took from a Malaysian state fund. Another alleged scam! The producers eventually agreed to pay $60 million to settle a lawsuit regarding the claims, But now Belfort has filed his own lawsuit. He says that he was the victim of their fraud as well.

Variety details his suit, which seeks a whopping $300 million in damages from Red Granite Pictures and its chief executive, Riza Aziz. In the suit, Belfort claims he “was completely blindsided to learn, after the fact, of the source of funding for Red Granite and the film based on his book/story, as Defendants concealed these criminal acts and funding sources from him...

Belfort — who served 22 months in prison after bilking investors out of a comparatively modest $200 million in the early 1990s — alleges that the 1MDB scandal has tainted the rights to his story. Belfort sold Red Granite the rights to his memoir and the sequel, Catching the Wolf of Wall Street. But in the wake of the 1MDB scandal, the suit contends that the company is no longer able to fully capitalize on those rights.

The suit claims that if Belfort had “known [the truth about Red Granite] he certainly never would have sold the rights.” But Variety’s article also includes quotes from a 2017 interview with Belfort where he claims, in stark and fairly profane terms, that he knew as far back as the The Wolf of Wall Street launch party at Cannes, that something fishy was going on.

Presumably a court will decide the ultimate veracity of his claims, and the legal outcome of all this. But the irony of the scammer becoming the alleged scamee is just too mind-bending for words. Frankly, this sounds like a movie plot. Who’s ready for a sequel? 2 Wolves 2 Wall Street! Let’s do it!